FINDING THE RIGHT PLACE ON CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN MEDIA CHANGE IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE THE MAP. Edited by KAROL JAKUBOWICZ & MIKLÓS SÜKÖSD - PDF

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ING IGHT ON AP CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN MEDIA CHANGE IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FINDING THE RIGHT PLACE ON THE MAP Edited by KAROL JAKUBOWICZ & MIKLÓS SÜKÖSD Finding the Right Place on the Map Central

ING IGHT ON AP CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN MEDIA CHANGE IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FINDING THE RIGHT PLACE ON THE MAP Edited by KAROL JAKUBOWICZ & MIKLÓS SÜKÖSD Finding the Right Place on the Map Central and Eastern European Media Change in a Global Perspective Finding the Right Place on the Map Central and Eastern European Media Change in a Global Perspective Edited by Karol Jakubowicz and Miklós Sükösd This publication is supported by COST. FirstPublishedintheUKin2008by IntellectBooks,TheMill,ParnallRoad,Fishponds,Bristol,BS163JG,UK FirstpublishedintheUSAin2008by IntellectBooks,TheUniversityofChicagoPress, 1427E.60thStreet, C hica go, IL60637, USA C opyright IntellectLtd Allrights reserved. N op artofthispublicationm aybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,phot ocopying,r ecording,orotherwise,without writtenper mission. A cataloguerecordforthisbookisavaila blefromthe British Library. C overdesign: G abrielsolomons C opy Editor: HollySpra dling Typesetting: MacStyle,Beverley, E.Yorkshire ISBN EISBN Printedand bound byg utenbergpress,malta. N eitherthe C O ST O fficenoranypersonactingonitsbehalfisresponsible fortheusewhichmightbemadeoftheinformationcontainedinthis publication.the C O ST O fficeisnotresponsiblefortheexternalwebsites referredto inthispublication. European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) This series consists of books arising from the intellectual work of ECREA members. Books address themes relevant to the ECREA s interests; make a major contribution to the theory, research, practice and/or policy literature; are European in scope; and represent a diversity of perspectives. Book proposals are refereed. Series Editors Nico Carpentier François Heinderyckx Series Advisory Board Denis McQuail Robert Picard Jan Servaes The aims of the ECREA are a) To provide a forum where researchers and others involved in communication and information research can meet and exchange information and documentation about their work. Its disciplinary focus will include media, (tele)communications and informatics research, including relevant approaches of human and social sciences; b) To encourage the development of research and systematic study, especially on subjects and areas where such work is not well developed; c) To stimulate academic and intellectual interest in media and communication research, and to promote communication and cooperation between members of the Association; d) To co-ordinate the circulation of information on communications research in Europe, with a view to establishing a database of ongoing research; e) To encourage, support and, where possible, publish the work of young researchers in Europe; f) To take into account the desirability of different languages and cultures in Europe; g) To develop links with relevant national and international communication organizations and with professional communication researchers working for commercial organizations and regulatory institutions, both public and private; h) To promote the interests of communication research within and among the Member States of the Council of Europe and the European Union; i) To collect and disseminate information concerning the professional position of communication researchers in the European region; and j) To develop, improve and promote communication and media education. CONTENTS Twelve Concepts Regarding Media System Evolution and Democratization in Post-Communist Societies 9 Karol Jakubowicz and Miklós Sükösd Part One: Dimensions of Change 41 After Transition: The Media in Poland, Russia and China 43 Colin Sparks The Consolidation of Media Freedom in Post-Communist Countries 73 Péter Bajomi-Lázár Part Two: Normative and Policy Approaches to Media and Democracy 85 How Media and Politics Shape Each Other in the New Europe 87 Alina Mungiu-Pippidi Finding the Right Place on the Map: Prospects for Public Service Broadcasting in Post-Communist Countries 101 Karol Jakubowicz Dances with Wolves: A Meditation on the Media and Political System in the European Union s Romania 125 Peter Gross Democratizing Media, Welcoming Big Brother: Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina 145 Aida A. Hozic Media Concentration Trends in Central and Eastern Europe 165 Zrinjka Peruško and Helena Popoviç Part Three: Objectivity vs Partisanship and Fandom 191 How Will It All Unfold? Media Systems and Journalism Cultures in Post-Communist Countries 193 Epp Lauk Changing Journalistic Discourses in the Baltic States -- How to Deal with Cheap Journalism 213 Auksė Balc v ytienė Effect Seekers and Media Spectacle: Hungarian Audience Responses to Partisan Media 227 Péter Csigó Part Four: Media, Exclusion, and Conflict The Disadvantaged in Infotainment Television: From Representation to Policy 259 Ferenc Hammer Radicals Online: The Hungarian Street Protests of 2006 and the Internet 277 Mónika Mátay and Ildikó Kaposi Authors Biographies 297 TWELVE CONCEPTS REGARDING MEDIA SYSTEM EVOLUTION AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES Karol Jakubowicz and Miklós Sükösd The present book is a contribution to the effort to take stock of changes in media systems in post-communist society, as well as of the scholarly debate on the subject. Of course, it is not yet possible to formulate final and definitive views on either topic, given both the enormous scope of the process of change after 1989, and the fact that that process is far from finished. Nevertheless, several strong themes concerning the nature and effects of the process emerge from the papers included in the book. What sets the present book apart from much of the literature on the subject is its comparative perspective, placing developments in post-communist countries in a much broader context. Perhaps for the first time, Central and Eastern European media scholars are willing to take a cold, critical look at other media systems and assess what is happening in their own region also by reference to processes unfolding elsewhere. Since the collapse of the communist system in 1989 to1991, Central and Eastern European societies 1 have been overtaken by a process of change that is perhaps of unprecedented magnitude and complexity in modern world history. This has involved triple 2 or quadruple 3 post-communist transformation, as well as (in addition to, but also in tandem with, or as a result of, transformation), modernization, globalization and international integration, including particularly (for selected post-communist countries) accession into the European Union. In this introductory essay, 4 we try to outline twelve conceptual frames that may help to capture the key features of this deep and many-sided transformation, with a special focus on changing media systems in the post-communist world. As Sparks notes in his contribution to this volume, traditional transitology is in crisis. No coherent theory of the process unfolding in postcommunist countries has emerged to replace it, nor indeed is expected to emerge. Therefore, our intention here is quite modest: to point to key aspects of the process in the hope that this will contribute to better understanding of its complexity. 10 FINDING THE RIGHT PLACE ON THE MAP 1. Media as a key area of systemic change: spillover effects Media system change is, of course, part and parcel of the general process of what may be called systemic social transformation. McQuail (2005) describes the media system as the actual set of mass media in a given national society, characterized by such main dimensions as scale and centralization, degree of politicization, diversity profile, sources of finance and degree of public regulation and control. Each system is also characterized by certain organizing principles expressed in what Merrill and Lowenstein (1979) call a philosophy of the press system as well as in a set of normative goals the system is intended to pursue. These, in turn, reflect the given society s general circumstances and its view of the media, resulting in its media policy. Media system change results from changes in both these cultural (cognitive, conceptual) and structural (policy, economic, institutional etc.) factors. According to liberal theories of democratic state, such as those of John Stuart Mill, democracy is unthinkable without freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom of association. Accordingly, media freedom is generally seen today as a necessary precondition of democracy and vice versa. This volume confirms that the media are both an independent and a dependent variable in democratic development. Much is made in the literature of the need for an enabling environment for media freedom and contribution to democracy. What, however, if the social, political and economic environment is less than favourable and enabling? In the present volume, Bajomi-Lazar looks at the prerequisites for consolidation of media freedom, while Sparks, Mungiu-Pippidi, Jakubowicz and Gross analyse the reasons why in post-communist countries the media often operate in a disabling environment. To perform its functions, the media have to fulfill a number of expectations and provide a number of services for democracy. Gurevitch and Blumler (1990) list eight key expectations regarding the democratic performance of the media: Surveillance of the socio-political environment, reporting developments likely to impinge, positively or negatively, on the development of citizens; Meaningful agenda setting, identifying the key issues of the day, including the forces that have formed and may resolve them; Platforms for an intelligible and illuminating advocacy by politicians and spokespersons of other causes and interest groups; Dialogue across a diverse range of views, as well as between power holders (actual and prospective) and mass publics; Mechanisms for holding officials to account for how they have exercised power; Incentives for citizens to learn, choose and become involved, rather than merely followed and kibitz over the political process; A principled resistance to the efforts of forces outside the media to subvert their independence, integrity and ability to serve the audience; A sense of respect for the audience member as potentially concerned and able to make sense of his or her political environment. We should remember, however, that at the beginning of the post-communist transformation, mass publics did not have much or, indeed any, experience of democracy. Democratic change in 1989 to 91 started after 40 to 45 years, or over 70 years of communist rule (in Central Europe, Soviet domination began between 1945 to 1949, and in the Soviet Union the communists took over in 1917). One should add that most countries in Central and South-Eastern Europe had TWELVE CONCEPTS REGARDING MEDIA SYSTEM EVOLUTION 11 never experienced fully developed democracies, as they had been run by authoritarian or semidemocratic regimes also in the pre-world War II period (the only exception probably being Czechoslovakia). In this historical context, the media also performed particular roles that characterized the specific post-communist situation. As the political agenda of the early transformation period was dominated by democracy building (and also by nation-building in several countries), democratic expectations of the media included roles in related processes. In partial overlap with, but also adding specific demands to the list above, the media had to perform several specific roles in the post-communist media systems, as indeed in any young democracy. These included (Sükösd 1997/98, 2000): Introduction and legitimization of the concepts of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism; Introduction and legitimization of the concepts of political pluralism, competition; and new political parties and candidates as legitimate competitors; Developing civil society by introducing NGOs and other civic groups as legitimate public actors; Democratic agenda setting and framing of current issues along the concepts above; Challenging the space and degree of transformation for further democratization; Safeguarding new democratic institutions; Exploring wrongdoing by old as well as new elites (e.g., investigative journalism) and covering socio-political scandals to define boundaries of acceptable conduct Developing accountability to citizens/viewers; Personalization of politics: introducing candidates and parties before the first democratic elections by applying criteria regarding democratic programs and personal skills; Democratic education regarding elections and voting procedures; Offer a space for democratic evaluation of national past (including the communist period and its leaders) and the discussion of historical justice; Contribution to national integration along democratic lines (in many newly formed countries, contribution to nation building); Democratic performance of the media as a contribution to the democratization of other sectors (media communication as a facilitator). In the process of nurturing young democratic institutions and democratic citizenship, democratic performance of the media had an important impact on democratization in general, but also on its specific sectors. By covering issues of the day as well as longer term trends, media democratization often had spillover effects (or trickle-down effects) regarding democratization of particular institutions. By framing stories and building agendas according to democratic criteria, media performance had the opportunity of shaping public opinion about concretes cases reinforcing rule of law both in politics and the economy. By uncovering wrongdoing and abuse of power, investigative reporters and political scandals in the media helped to set the norms of acceptable vs non-acceptable behaviour in new pluralist democracies (on the role of political and media scandals in defining socially acceptable norms of conduct, see Lull and Hinerman 1997; Markovits and Silverstein 1988). Insofar the media performed their democratic roles, they also contributed to the process of consolidation of democracy in all its five dimensions listed by Linz and Stepan (1996, 7 15). 12 FINDING THE RIGHT PLACE ON THE MAP 2. The ontogenesis of democratic media institutions Besides spillover effects, another relationship between democratization of media and systemic democratization may be captured by the metaphor of ontogenesis, introduced by Jakubowicz in his paper. The concept of ontogenesis in developmental biology captures individual development of a living thing, all sequence of its transformations. 5 In other words, it means that every specimen of the species repeats in the course of its development all the stages of evolution that the entire species had gone through in the process of its philogenesis. As the starting point of the transformation, the official Central and Eastern European media systems up to 1990 were characterized by a wide-ranging system of censorship overseen by Communist Party agencies, the monopoly of state broadcasting and exclusive state/party ownership of the press, party nomenklatura as media executives, and hegemonic propaganda content (Sükösd 2000). Given this historical context, as Jakubowicz notes in his paper about public service media in the emerging democracies, Central and Eastern European countries are thus discovering that when they transplant an institution copied on Western patterns, they are in reality launching a process that will retrace the developments that ultimately led to its successful development elsewhere. They must therefore repeat albeit probably in an accelerated form the experience (and all the mistakes) that Western European countries went through before they were able to achieve something close to the desired results (PSB is strong and truly independent only in a few Western countries). It is almost like the process of ontogenesis in biology. In a historical view of systemic transformation, the concept of ontogenesis may refer to the development of particular institutions of democracy, replicating (in whole or in part) the historical sequence of their earlier development in other societies. The institutional pattern of newly established and transplanted democratic media institutions may be seen as one in which democratic potentials are encoded. However, whether such potentials can be realized and the institutions can be utilized according to their basic principles remains subject to conflicts and particular conditions of their social, cultural and institutional embeddedness. In Central and Eastern Europe, repeated media wars, i.e., continued struggle for media independence, have been characterizing media system transformation. In media wars, journalists, editors, their unions, media managers and civic groups fought in various coalitions with governments, oppositions, political and as well as business clans. Media wars and other similar developments can be seen as subsequent periods through which the ontogenesis of democratic media institutions proceeds. Such media wars included fights by various clan media and several phases of struggle against central control and for independence in Russia and Ukraine from the 1990s; Hungarian media wars around public service broadcasting that became focal conflicts of political struggles (during the 1990s); a famous strike of public television personnel against government intervention in the Czech Republic (2000); similar recent developments in Slovakia; street protests against the persecution of the Rustavi-2 TV station in Georgia (October 2001); street protests in Moscow against the elimination of NTV, an independent TV station (2001); a campaign against changes in PSB law, threatening its political subordination in Slovenia (2005); protests in Poland against pressure being put on public and independent media and against ultimately unsuccessful attempts to vet journalists for possible history of collaboration TWELVE CONCEPTS REGARDING MEDIA SYSTEM EVOLUTION 13 with communist-time secret police, with the threat that they would be banned from the journalistic profession for ten years if they refused to submit to this ( ). All this has had the effect of qualifying the role and impact of the media on the democratization process, as they were caught up in a struggle against what we have called the disabling environment. As Hungarian sociologist Elemér Hankiss, first president of Hungarian television in the postcommunist period, notes about resistance to repeated attempts by authoritarian leaders in his country s media war, In their stubborn fight for autonomy, Hungarian Television and Radio became the major actors of a society protesting against and authoritarian efforts of the government. [We] had to learn that democracy cannot be established overnight by a first and free election. It may be generated only in the course of a long and tedious process in which everybody has to take part and has to take up his or her responsibilities The facts that two fragile public institutions, which could rely only on the letter and spirit of the law, were able to protect their newly won autonomy against extremely strong pressures and attacks from the government and the governing parties proves that all the main political actors observed, at least until the last act, the rule of law, and have accepted the basic rules of the democratic game. In this sense, ontogenesis refers to a long societal learning process, with all the attendant crises and conflicts, in which democratic rules ultimately become accepted as the only game in town and respect for media independence finally wins the day. The legal and institutional framework for that may exist on paper, but political and cultural preconditions needed to safeguard it take a long time to develop. Media institutions are exceptional organizations as they are very visible and by nature occupy central positions in their respective countries communicati

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